Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,33

Her voice was low.

“What was the point of that?”

The painkillers took over. Lena rambled about quitting, about pain, and fear, and what it was like to get fucking slapped, and how did she know the bone wasn’t broken. How was it legal to treat people like this. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. They couldn’t do this. Dr. Lisa poured Lena some more water, then took the blanket off her lap and put it on Lena. A bin behind her chair was filled with blankets, another pillow. She pulled out the pillow, helped Lena prop up her wrist, putting pressure on the cast. That hurts, Lena thought. The doctor leaned over, still holding onto her cast. She whispered into Lena’s ear, “Before you talk like that to any of us again, think about your mother.”

11

When Lena returned to the office a folder was waiting on her desk. Inside were her Day sheets. Day 3: You helped Ian (Inventory and Dispatch) begin inventorying the warehouse. You saw a bat roosting in the corner and called animal control. Day 4: A large shipment of cereal was delivered. You began taking an online course to build your spreadsheet knowledge. You and Bethany (receptionist) had lunch together. Day 5: Charlie (manager) organized a pizza party on Friday for the group. You continued inventorying the warehouse. Day 6: You hurt your wrist over the weekend. Mariah (HR) organized a card for everyone to sign. You thought that was very nice. You continued taking your online course about spreadsheets.

There were six different observers in the office today, all wearing gray polo shirts and slacks. Lena tried to guess which one wrote their days for them—maybe the tall, thin man with clear plastic glasses. Or the brunette woman, the one who parted her hair directly down the middle.

No one asked Lena how she got the cast. The expected Feel Better! card was handed over to her by a smiling Mariah, who was called quickly away for another experiment. The painkillers smoothed away the edges of any emotions, so the day felt blurred. Bethany talked earnestly about how she was going to convert this office to using only eco-friendly cleaning products. She made Lena look at the new poster she had put next to her desk. It was a white poster that was mostly an illustration of a pineapple upside-down cake. Underneath it was the slogan STRESSED IS JUST DESSERTS SPELLED BACKWARD!

Spreadsheets. An experiment where she watched another stand-up comedy video: A sofa talked about rolling up to the club but having too much junk in the trunk for ladies to want to get down with him. Staring at her phone. She read long text conversations with her mother performed by someone pretending to be her. Ignored texts from Tanya, Kelly, and Stacy. Sitting in the break room and eating a bag of chips, she felt someone was watching her. It was Dr. Lisa, standing next to the coffeemaker, arms crossed. “Hi,” she mouthed, smiling as if she was pleased to see Lena.

“Hi,” Lena mouthed back, pretending to be happy to see her too.

Around lunchtime, Tanya texted Lena again to see when she could come visit, and what was her address so she could send letters. Lena ignored the address request, knowing in an impulsive mood, Tanya would just show up at her apartment despite the long drive. She took a selfie of herself with her cast, stopped herself from sending it to Tanya. That would mean a visit, fussing, concern, questions about how it had happened.

When Lena’s grandma died, Tanya had put together an elaborate care package. A bottle of nice bourbon, different beauty supplies, Lena’s favorite cookies. The gesture had been nice, but Lena didn’t want to touch anything in the package except the three-dollar cookies. Everything else felt too special-occasion. Why couldn’t Tanya have just bought the cookies and said Let’s watch a dumb movie? It was always too much: trying to pay for the Saturday-night dinners when their dorm’s cafeteria was closed, movie tickets, supplying top-shelf liquor in their dorm room that she claimed had been given to her as gifts. As if people approached Tanya on the streets and said, “A woman who looks like you deserves high-quality liquor,” and pressed the unopened bottle into her hands, then vanished.

Lena tried not to care too much; she never complained, tried as much as possible to act like it was normal. The few times they had talked about it, Tanya was supremely relaxed. She was frank about